Arguments or parameters? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Parameters are the things defined by functions as input, arguments are the things passed as parameters.

void foo(int bar) { ... }

foo(baz);

In this example, bar is a parameter for foo. baz is an argument passed to foo.

Answer 2

When you define a function like:

MyFunction(param1,param2) {
  print parameter1, parameter
}

You set the parameters when you define the function. When you call the function like this:

MyFunction('argument1', 'argument2');

You set the values of the parameters to the arguments you passed. The arguments are what you put in the question when you call it. Hope that helped.

Answer 3

Think of it like basic algebra. X is the parameter that you have to fill in, and the number you place inside of it is the argument. So if you have an equation like X+2, X is your parameter, and any numbers you change for X become known as the arguments. So if using that equation you supplement 1 for x, you get 1+2. That means that 1 is an argument, supplied to the parameter of X.

Equally, if you have a function like dosomething("This"), it's definition would be dosomething(string parametername), but "This" would be the actual argument that is being supplied to the parameter, here named parametername.

In the simplest way to look at it, the parameter is the thing that the argument fills in, and the argument can be any number of things allowed by that parameter.

So it's a many-to-one relationship between Parameters and arguments, as you can have one parameter that can have many valid arguments, like our X+1 equation above. X can be any number known, and they are all valid.

Answer 4

A Parameter is a variable in the declaration of a function:

functionName(parameter) {
    // do something
}

An Argument is the actual value of this variable that gets passed to the function:

functionName(argument);

Answer 5

For user1515422, a very concrete example showing the difference between parameters and arguments:

Consider this function:

int divide(int numerator, int denominator) {
    return numerator/denominator;
}

It has two parameters: numerator and denominator, set when it's defined. Once defined, the parameters of a function are fixed and won't change.

Now consider an invocation of that function:

int result = divide(8, 4);

In this case, 8 and 4 are the arguments passed to the function. The numerator parameter is set to the value of the argument 8, and denominator is set to 4. Then the function is evaluated with the parameters set to the value of the arguments. You can think of the process as equivalent to:

int divide() {
    int numerator = 8;
    int denominator = 4;
    return numerator/denominator;
}

The difference between a parameter and an argument is akin to the difference between a variable and its value. If I write int x = 5;, the variable is x and the value is 5. Confusion can arise because it's natural to say things like "x is five," as shorthand for "The variable x has the value 5," but hopefully the distinction is clear.

Does that clarify things?

Answer 6

In fact both parameter and argument are different types of parameters. Those are

1)Formal Parameters - variables appear in function/subroutine definitions

for eg. (in Java)

public void foo(Integer integer, String... s2)

Here both integer and s2 are formal parameters or loosely speaking parameters.

2)Actual parameters or arguments - variables appear in subroutines while calling the

already defined subroutine

for eg. (in Java) suppose If the function "foo" resides in object "testObject" ,

testObject.foo(new Integer(1), "test")

So variables in the function definition are called formal parameters or simply parameters and variables while calling methods are called as actual parameters or arguments. I hope it helps.